No room for IT security skills shortage: Jane Halton

The federal government needs to be prepared as a scandal over a data breach engulfing Facebook makes people more careful about web security, former Finance Department boss Jane Halton says.

As the social media giant faced international scrutiny and US House and Senate hearings over a data breach involving Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining firm associated with Donald Trump's presidential campaign, Australian web users would become "smart purchasers" of technology, Ms Halton said.

Jane Halton has spoken after the Cambridge Analytica revelations.Credit:Graham Tidy

She said she'd been sceptical before the scandal that younger web users accustomed to social media would be casual about where their data went.

"Seeing Mark Zuckerburg didn't want to say what hotel he stayed in has everyone saying 'we need to know about this'," she said, referring to an awkward exchange between the Facebook founder and a top US Democratic senator last Tuesday when the lawmaker asked him personal questions.

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Departments moving data into web-based storage - known as the cloud - needed to be able to assure Australian senators at estimates hearings the change was secure as they used it as a cheaper way to store information, she said.

"They need to be thoughtful about how they move to the cloud, they do need to understand what they are doing.

"We're talking about a world where trust in government is easily lost and hard to gain."

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Ms Halton, who led the Finance Department between 2014-2016 and previously headed the Department of Health, chairs a company starting a program to teach 3000 public servants annually about cloud and data security.

Vault Systems, which provides Australian Signals Directorate-certified cloud storage to government agencies and works with major departments including Human Services, Health, Social Services and Defence, will train the government's IT professionals as demand grows for secure cloud in the Australian Public Service.

Its training facility opening in May, the Vault Academy, will respond to a growing shortage of cloud computing skills across the government and is designed for software developers, infrastructure engineers, cloud architects, sales engineers and technical project leaders.

Vault Systems founder and chief executive Rupert Taylor-Price said the company consulted with government agencies in starting the academy after they said they wanted to upskill their staff in secure cloud systems.

Employees of the Department of Finance, the Australian Electoral Commission and National Disability Insurance Agency were caught up in a massive leak caused by a private contractor, along with more than 40,000 private sector workers from insurer AMP, utility UGL and Dutch multinational Rabobank.

There were also fears in 2016 that patients' sensitive medical information could have been made public in a Medicare data breach by the Health Department, while last year then-Minister for Human Services Alan Tudge asked his department and the Australian Federal Police to investigate reports Medicare card numbers were being sold on the "dark web".